Talk:Portrait of the Stained Princess/@comment-27476472-20190922154916/@comment-29376355-20190922173615
Ha, ha! When I played the bonus game and saw the "fake" princess playing with a rose, my first thought was "PRINCE JULIAN!? YOU'RE ALIVE!!!!" Come on, am I the only one who thought this? A mysterious figure that has the power to mimic other people, who goes around doing evil without an actual, verifiable reason? And someone who plays with roses? The fake princess is Prince Julian! He's alive, and somehow working for a mysterious figure (probably the infamous "witch" or "witches" that always seems to be hiding in the background. It's just a theory, of course. After all, Prince Julian met his supposed "demise" by being sucked into a portal in the Garden at the end of "Dark Parables-The Matchgirl's Lost Paradise." But remember that we only saw him get sucked in. The Matchgirl, Giselle, was dying when the spirit of the Forest Witch came through the portal and embraced her. We are left to assume that Giselle died in her beloved grandmother's arms and joined her in the afterlife, but we never actually saw what happened to Julian. We only know he got sucked into a portal, but we don't know what happened after that. As for the swans, well, I went into this game not expecting a connection between the swans in this game and the swans from "Dark Parables 11-The Swan Princess and the Dire Tree." After all, other cultures can use the same animal as a mascot, even if it is different ways. The Swan Knight seems to be unrelated to the Swan Guard (although that can change in later games). But I don't think that the developers are ignoring the Swan Guard entirely. Actually, I think this new game has opened up a new connection to both "Dark Parables 6: Jack and the Sky Kingdom" and "Dark Parables 14-The Return of the Salt Princess." First, the mention of the Dark Fairy Queen in the Parables and how her relation with a mortal prince brought forth the kingdom of dark kingdom where Fiachra came from. We already have a Fairy Queen that we saw in both "Dark Parables 6" and "Dark Parables 13." So who is this Dark Fairy Queen? Are the Fairy Queen and the Dark Fairy Queen related? Also, the mention of "animal guardians" is similar to the deamons that we were introduced to in "Dark Parables 14-Return of the Salt Princess." Perhaps we have discovered what have become of one particular group of deamons that may have left Brigid's kingdom a long time ago? Perhaps the younger prince who married the Dark Fairy Queen is secretly a daemon or descended from deamons? Methinks the Fairytale Detective might want to write Princess Brigid and let her know so she can investigate this further? As for Fiachra, he needs to chill! He should have given the Princess and the King a chance to explain, but his first reaction is to curse her!? And yet he sits in the shadows all this time while she suffers and makes her find the Water of Life? At the very least, after he cursed her, he could have been more active in trying to help her break the curse! If he was even half-way smart, he would have apologized and then teamed up with her to find the Water of Life! And in the meantime, they could have spent time together and their relationship could have evolved! But no! He had to be a selfish brat, and while I am sympathetic to him, I don't think he truly loved the Princess the way we would define love. It was more like he was obsessed with her because she showed him kindness when others didn't. Heck, he didn't even bother to see if perhaps the reason she couldn't remember him is if she was cursed by someone to forget him (it would make sense that the King, in an attempt to keep the two apart, would have done something to ensure that the Princess forgot about her friend.) Still, I found the game to be very enjoyable! The artistry was amongst the best of the DP games, and the music was fantastic! The story did have some plot holes, and there was a distinct lack of old characters that I would have loved to catch up with, but the game was enjoyable nevertheless. Here's hoping the next game will finally be about the Nutcracker and we finally see Pinocchio, Belladonna, or any of the other characters again.